The Leisure and Cultural Services Department announced on Wednesday (22nd) that the Recreation Garden on Portland Street in Yau Tsim Mong District has completed the renovation and will reopen for public use from noon on Thursday (23rd).
Nearly half of the refurbished garden uses pink as the main color. The tables, chairs, chessboards, and venue signs are all painted in the same color. The garden is also one of the few non-smoking public spaces under the LCSD. .
The Portland Street Garden and the other three sites belong to the "Wei. Co-Research Institute" and "Zhong.
The four pilot mini-park improvement projects under the "Happy Paradise" project were promoted by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the Architectural Services Department, and the local design group "Faith Design Ambassador".
The first one was the renovation project of Tsuen Wan Erbei Square Playground, which was completed in April of this year. The next two were the Hill Road Flyover Resting Area in Central and Western District and the Hammeton Street Resting Garden in Yau Tsim Mong District.
Value creation is negotiable
The proposed scope of the renovation project mainly focuses on the re-arrangement of venue facilities, refurbishment of the platform, optimization of lighting and landscape design, installation of closed-circuit television systems, and the renovation of Erbeifang amusement park with additional inclusive children’s amusement facilities and the elderly Fitness facilities.
When the relevant project was put into the District Council for discussion, members asked about the cost of the project. However, the LCSD did not respond to the relevant question at the meeting.
Looking at the cost of the two completed improvement projects, the Erbei Square Playground covers an area of 930 square meters and the cost is 13.18 million yuan, with an average cost of more than 14,000 yuan per square foot, while the Portland Street Recreation Garden is 376 square meters. The cost of the renovation project is about RMB 4.5 million, and the average cost per square foot of renovation is close to RMB 12,000.
As for the upcoming Hammerton Street Rest Garden in Yau Tsim Mong District, occupying an area of 243 square meters, the LCSD estimates that the cost is 3.2 million, which is an average renovation price of more than 13,000 yuan per square foot.
The SAR government provides funding for the relevant engineering projects, but has no direct involvement in any work in the project, reflecting that the government may not actively audit and control costs.
However, the government is actually responsible for controlling the cost of the project, and it should try to keep the cost down and avoid wasting public funds.
The Transformation Myth of Public Space
The Leisure and Cultural Services Department stated that the purpose of the park facilities renovation project is to "inject innovative design and artistic elements into the crowded public spaces" and to "improve the garden environment while encouraging users to communicate with each other, so that the garden becomes a gathering point for the community. ".
However, these open spaces used to be illegal gambling and stray owls and night swallows lingering black spots. It is doubtful that the establishment and renovation of the facilities alone can improve the atmosphere of the community.
Take this refurbishment project of Portland Street Garden as an example. The design team claimed that in order to cope with the problem of people defecating in the planter in the past, the planter was deliberately built higher and the additional seats around it made it difficult to enter it, but Will they stop their unsanitary behavior because of these facilities?
I believe the answer is no. On the contrary, some people may even urinate directly.
In contrast, adding a public toilet or adding a mobile toilet seems to be more pragmatic to solve the above problems, and it is more effective to improve the local atmosphere and bring about changes.
In order for the community to break the old view and rebuild a good cultural life circle, it must start with pragmatic work, rather than relying on insisting on an extraordinary appearance and imaginary decoration.
The government's intention to recreate a healthy community space is certainly worthy of support, but officials must also do their best to check their responsibilities, make recommendations to relevant cooperative agencies, and control expenditures, so as to avoid laissez-faire loss of public power but produce products that are not satisfactory to the society.
Even the name of the country is wrong, the Hong Kong government must do a good job in resource allocation to promote economic development.